– The Problem of Ambivalence in Individual Counseling in Nashville TN

WHAT IS AMBIVALENCE AND WHAT IS ITS SIGNIFICANCE TO HEALTHY LIVING

References “Chronic Ambivalence: An Individual And Marital Problem.” Psychotherapy, 1987, Vol. 24, No. 1, 85-89.”by Shirley Braverman

Ambivalence is a funny word, but those familiar with Individual Counseling will have often heard it spoken during sessions.  Even those familiar with the word may not be fully aware of its meaning and context.  Ambivalence is a wonderful description of an experience many of us feel on a daily basis.  Shirley Braverman describes ambivalence this way, “a simultaneous attraction toward and a repulsion from an object, person, or action.  The conflicting pulls in two opposite directions cause individuals who experience it to have feelings ranging from discomfort to anguish and prevent them from making decisions and taking action.” (p. 85)  Indecisiveness becomes a symptom of ambivalence, but the underlying issue is typically ambivalence.  Braverman makes the point that most of us feel this tension and that is not a problem.  It only becomes a problem when it is consistently enacted in everyday life.

Many individuals in individual counseling in Nashville don’t suffer from a chronic case of ambivalence, but because of its appearance in most of our lives, it is an important issue to address.  In describing more chronic cases of ambivalence, Braverman writes, “The chronically ambivalent woman cannot make decisions; hence, she never takes responsibility for making a choice.  She never takes the “I” position.  Someone usually makes the choice for her.  If she remains inactive, she does not have the feeling that she chose to be inactive; she experiences it as someone else not having given her the opportunity to make a choice.  Thus, this is always some other who is making decisions or taking action for her, or is seen by her to be preventing her from doing so.”  (p. 86)

Again, this may not be the ultimate reason most people come to individual counseling, but there is usually some flare of ambivalence lurking in many people.  It is usually referred by pop-psychology as “indecisiveness,” but this article seeks to take a more aggressive look at ambivalence and it’s underlying causes and harm.  Braverman writes, “…the roots of the bevavior go back to the individual’s earliest relationship with her parents  during the separation-individuation phase of development and a relationship with the mother that was defective in some crucial aspect.  Curiosly, one tends to find in the background history of these clients a relationship with the mother that was good.  The mothers were not obviously neglectful or abusive; they were usually concerned and caring.  The common thread that one finds is either mothers who were very anxious people and hovered over their children or mothers who were very preoccupied, because of financial, marital, or health problems.” (p. 86)  I believe this is why ambivalence typically goes unaddressed and why it is so difficult to nail down.  There usually aren’t any major red flags, and most familial relationships are described as good.

But part of the purpose of individual counseling is to take things more seriously than the average person might be inclined to do.  Ambivalence left unaddressed can lead to unhealthy relationships where the ambivalent person is continuously seeking to find an authority figure in their life to make decisions for them as an attempt to assuage the responsibility of becoming an adult.  In childhood, this seemingly innocent mother added such a level of neediness upon the child that there was never any space for the child to become independent or make decisions for themselves.  In fact, the child became to see individuation (through making personal decisions) as harmful to her mother, because the mother would never praise the child’s decisions, and the mother may react with disappointment and distance that the child did not confer with her mother about a decision.  So, the child learns that it is bad to make an individual decision.

In individual counseling in Nashville, where southern culture has such a strong influence, ambivalence can be further camouflaged, because women, even as adults, are protected from the responsibility of making important decisions by their husbands.  Men are seen as heads-of-households which has basically come to mean that the man has the ultimate final say in important decisions.  The irony rears its ugly head in individual counseling, because so many men are frustrated and exhausted by wives who “can’t make decisions for themselves.”  It’s a self-perpetuating cycle that wasn’t necessarily created by the husband, but served to his benefit until the relentless inability to make a decision created tension within the relationship.

Of course, individual counseling isn’t interested in “blaming the mother” for a person’s deficiencies.  That would simply serve to continue the helpless cycle.  But, for many people, understanding that their ambivalence has a root and source, can be extremely empowering.  It is empowering, because it means that there is nothing inherently wrong with them.  It does mean there is a lot of work ahead.  It doesn’t mean that breaking old patterns will be easy, but it does mean that it is possible.